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Virtual Land, Real Court, Real Money
Wired is reporting on what may be a first: a real world court appearance over a virtual land claim. From the article: "The attorney, Marc Bragg of West Chester, Pennsylvania, says game developer Linden Lab unilaterally shut down his Second Life account, cutting off his access to a substantial portfolio of real estate and currency in the virtual world. He's demanding $8,000 in restitution. Bragg claims Linden Lab froze his account after a land deal went bad. The attorney said he found a legitimate way to purchase land at prices far below market rates, using an online auction on the Second Life website."
The guy exploits a bug, gets his account shut out, and is expecting money?
"Without merit" indeed.
2 things, there is probably somthing saying if you use an exploit you will get your account deleted and also just the sheer fact that he used such a underhanded way to cheat the online auction system... He deserves his account deleted.
So, my wife just heard about second life last night... and wants to get online playing it. I have started researching it a bit today. Second life is very different than the MMORPGs I have played in the past. Second life encourages you to buy land and buy money, with real currancy. Interestingly enough, they also seem to respect your IP rights, for items you bring into the game. I think that the fact that you can convert real money into virtual assets will put this guy in the winner's circle... assuming the judge will understand any of it. :-)
I think THIS is the reason that the other MMORPGs keep you FROM buying items with real money.
I'm so glad. So very glad my life doesn't amount to caring about virtual land. It's so nice out today.
"It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
In short, dude doesn't have a case. But he does have a great deal of free publicity.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
Compare it to some types of cheque fraud - the system (or teller or what have you, depending on the nature of the scam) is fooled into completing a transaction by the fraudster's manipulation of the normal procedures. Definately illegal, and very similar to this - due a flaw in the automated nature of the auction processing, he was able to complete transactions which should never have been allowed in the normal scheme of things. This wasn't a bumbling rube finding a good deal, this was someone manipulating the system with a clear intent to turn a sizable profit from it.
This basically comes down to a battle between "They should have been more careful" and the fact that he maliciously interfered with their system in an unintended way for personl gain. Given the company will probably be cheerfully loading up on words like "Fraud", "hacking", "Terms of Use" in any arguments they submit, he'll probably get steamrolled pretty quickly since courts like to pounce on words like that.
Here's how it worked.
You could find land in-world that was marked for auction but hadn't gone up for auction yet. It had the auction ID on the parcel info.
You could then go to the auction web site and change the GET variable in an auction URL to point to the not-yet-existing auction, which would come up with a minimum bid of $0, rather than the normal $1000.
His case hinges on one you hand typed this crafted URL, it says "Be the first to bid in this auction, bid at least $1"... he claims that this formed a binding offer of sale.
The "exploit" was trivial, but it was obviously not the intent of Linden Lab to sell the land for a minimum bid of $0.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
That ignores the real issues.
The issue at hand is whether crafting a URL is "hacking" or if the subsequent results of typing a hand crafted URL that the creator didn't intend you to type can form the basis of a binding contract or not.
(BTW- Second life isn't a MMORPG, it's a 3D development platform in the form of an interactive social world)
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Watch what happens next--Linden Labs will slap a countersuit at him alleging a DMCA violation. Sad thing is, their case will have a whole lot more merit than his does.
This guy's the limit!
I don't know much about Second Life (still trying to figure out the first one) but if it's already a video game, Linden should be able to put together a little PVP system that lets anyone with a dispute like this take it into the Thunderdome. Two avatars enter, one avatar gets deleted.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
How is this hacking? He merely changed the URL, which is somthing I do every day because I come accross broken links and stuff.
An equivalent real world scenario is that an action house was setting up for an auction in an unmarked building. A person heard that they were setting up for an auction and went there to see if he could get in on the action early. The auctioneer is an idiot, and starts the auction even tho only 1 person is in the room and sells stuff to him for stupid low prices.
This guy was being sneaky, but it looks to me like he did nothing wrong to obtain this land. I think at most they should have taken away the land and refunded him the price, NOT frozen his account and taken all his other money.
What if one of the bank's ATMs was giving out extra money whenever someone used it, and because you realized that and used it over and over again they take ALL your money, not just the money it gave you in error.
changing price tags at Home Depot and then being like "well, the price tags come off, so you need to sell me this $1299 BBQ for $199."
Seems more like taking the the price tags off, then going to the cashier and saying - "I think this should cost $199 - do you agree?" and the cashier agrees, rings it up and lets you leave with the BBQ. Then a week later Home Depot comes by your house and tries to reposses the BBQ.
It takes two to tango, in this case the seller agreed to the selling price. They have a responsibility to refuse transactions that they don't want to accept. Saying that the sale was automated and thus not subjected to sanity checks ought not be a sufficient defense.
If you want the benefits of automated sales without the risks, it ought to be up to the seller to implement effective precautions. No e-commerce developer with even half a claim to competence would allow the price of a product to be determined by the contents of the URL submitted to the webserver - unless they wanted to on purpose (c.f. cd-wow, they've got a bunch of different URL's to their site and depending on which one you use, you'll see variations of up to a couple of dollars in their prices).
Sure, they DO respect your IP rights. But you have to abide by the terms of service. He exploited the system and violated those terms. He won't win this one. Same as if he cheated a real auction.
BTW, this is off-topic, but if you wife is even a little squeemish on the porn front, she's going to want to join the teen server. It's porn/bdsm heaven out there in the rest of the world. (I didn't join the teen server, but I hear they are pretty serious about keeping it clean.)
I was also very interested in creating items in game, but just like real life, having a storefront is location, location, location and getting your items in front of people that will buy them isn't all that easy.
In short: Don't invest much money until you are SURE you have a handle on the whole business.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Linden may be morons for making their auction system easy to exploit, but in the same way companies aren't liable for misprints in ad fliers, and companies can cancel obviously broken sales (like when an airline website accidently sells flights for $.02; the airline can cancel those sales, though usually they don't for PR reasons), Linden isn't obligated to honor a contract which the guy games the system to secure.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
It takes two to tango, in this case the seller agreed to the selling price. They have a responsibility to refuse transactions that they don't want to accept. Saying that the sale was automated and thus not subjected to sanity checks ought not be a sufficient defense.
Nope. Linden Labs can take the property back, no problem, or at least have the virtual "contract" voided. This is because there was no "meeting of the minds" when the contract was executed. If I, by mistake, offer to pay $1000 for a Billy Joel CD, when really I left out the decimal point and meant to offer $10.00, there is no obligation for me to actually pay that much money for something clearly worth much less.
They go over this in Business Law 101.
In this case, Linden Labs didn't mean to have the land up for sale at all, so no contract to buy it can possibly be valid, even if it was possible to trick Linden's computer systems into thinking it was up for sale. Now, if Linden Labs had taken some affirmative step to place the land up for sale, there might be an argument, since the value of the "land" is so difficult to determine.
If we want to torture the "Home Depot" analogy some more: The guy grabbed $3000 worth of lumber, got a cashier drunk, and then convinced him to ring it all up for $30. That's theft, no matter how you slice it.
SirWired
I am a lawyer, but this isn't legal advice.
In this case, there pretty clearly isn't a contract with offer and acceptance. The offer is made when the land is actually put up for auction *by the seller*.
The case is a clear enough loser (and a good example of the "fool for a client" principle) that the only way that a lawyer *could* take it would be in a "good faith effort to *change* the law."
hawk, esq.
According to their terms and conditions:
"2.6 Linden Lab may suspend or terminate your account at any time, without refund or obligation to you.
Linden Lab has the right at any time for any reason or no reason to suspend or terminate your Account, terminate this Agreement, and/or refuse any and all current or future use of the Service without notice or liability to you. In the event that Linden Lab suspends or terminates your Account or this Agreement, you understand and agree that you shall receive no refund or exchange for any unused time on a subscription, any license or subscription fees, any content or data associated with your Account, or for anything else. "
Based on this, they can do whatever they want. For that matter, according to this clause:
5.5 You will indemnify Linden lab from claims arising from breach of this Agreement by you, from your use of Second Life, from loss of Content due to your actions, or from alleged infringement by you.
At Linden Lab's request, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Linden Lab, its shareholders, partners, affiliates, directors, officers, subsidiaries, employees, agents, suppliers, licensees, distributors, Content Providers, and other users of the Service, from all damages, liabilities, claims and expenses, including without limitation attorneys' fees and costs, arising from any breach of this Agreement by you, or from your use of the Service. You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Linden Lab, its shareholders, partners, affiliates, directors, officers, subsidiaries, employees, agents, suppliers, licensees, and distributors, from all damages, liabilities, claims and expenses, including without limitation attorneys' fees and costs, arising from: (a) any action or inaction by you in connection with the deletion, alteration, transfer or other loss of Content, status or other data held in connection with your Account, and (b) any claims by third parties that your activity or Content in the Service infringes upon, violates or misappropriates any of their intellectual property or proprietary rights.
He's not even allowed to sue them according to this clause. Furthermore, check out this clause:
4.2 You agree to use Second Life as provided, without unauthorized software or other means of access or use. You will not make unauthorized works from or conduct unauthorized distribution of the Linden Software.
Linden Lab has designed the Service to be experienced only as offered by Linden Lab at the Websites or partner websites. Linden Lab is not responsible for any aspect of the Service that is accessed or experienced using software or other means that are not provided by Linden Lab. You agree not to create or provide any server emulators or other software or other means that provide access to or use of the Service without the express written authorization of Linden Lab. You acknowledge that you do not have the right to create, publish, distribute, create derivative works from or use any software programs, utilities, applications, emulators or tools derived from or created for the Service, except that you may use the Linden Software to the extent expressly permitted by this Agreement.
That means that Linden Labs can argue that He agrees to use Second Life as provided without "other means of access or use". Furthermore, the terms include a code of conduct that states "4.1 You agree to abide by certain rules of conduct, including the Community Standards and other rules prohibiting illegal and other practices that Linden Lab deems harmful." which looking at clause (v):
"take any actions or upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit Content that contains any viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware, time bombs, cancelbots or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information;"
Linden Labs can certainly argue that he took actions to transmit Content (a inappropriate url) to deterimentally interfere with the auction system.
I personally don't see how he has a leg to stand on.
Intentional or unintentional is beside the point.
When, in the arena of Law, is "intentional or unintentional" EVER beside the point?
Since he paid money to play the game, he is entitled and obliged to maximize his gaming experience by using the tools provided to him by the developer.
He paid money to play a game with the agreement that he would play by the game's rules. The game's operators determined unilaterally that his behavior was in violation of the rules (as the user agreement almost certainly gives them authority to do), and used said malfeasance as the basis for terminating the user's contract with them.
Plaintiff has no case, in my non-lawyerly opinion.
In which the husband gets custody of the mutant half-gerbils and the wife gets possession of all the unworldly assets.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'm subscribed to Second Life, and I see this whole issue as being very simple. I tend to have balanced views on most things, and this is no exception.
Bragg clearly perpetrated a simple scam. He knows that Linden Labs never intended to sell $1000 sims for $1, so he obtained the land inappropriately. There can be no denying this. How US law might view this is completely irrelevant to whether it was actually right or wrong, because ethically it was 100% wrong.
But Linden Labs have created a world where customers (not LL) own their personal content, and by implication they have independent lives and livelihoods and businesses etc etc. To cut off Bragg from his possessions, his virtual life, his livelihood and businesses was not only inappropriate, it was totally underhand and almost evil. They unilaterally executed this virtual person (I'm serious), without due process in-world nor any opportunity for defense. How US law might view this is completely irrelevant to whether it was actually right or wrong, because ethically it was 100% wrong. LL's Terms of Service are immaterial to the rights or wrongs of it in-world.
So there you have it. Neither side holds the moral high ground, and they both made mistakes. They should settle halfway and put it down to experience.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Virtual Court would be so much cooler
'Your Honor, I accuse the defendant of being a 1337 h4x0r, on the night of April 10th he pwn3d my b0x3n and then LOL'ed'
'Your Honor, I object on the grounds of O RLY'
> I agree completely. The seller agreed to the price, automated or not.
There is an assumption in the automation that the rules are as they are, not as someone who found a little trick can bend them.
A few years back, people were buying cars for $5 because someone found out the price was inside the HTML for the web page, so they edited the page on their machine to the price they wanted to pay, hit "send", and the servers at the dealership had no clue about anything, and processed the transaction without batting an eye.
Just because it's in a person's interest to padlock their wallet doesn't mean it's legal for you to pickpocket them if they don't. People should be able to leave their money lying around all over the place without fear of people taking it. That's not the real world, but that doesn't make it legal.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Not that I think there is a case but that is because he committed fraud.
At least in europe all those agreements got a line that effectively says, this agreement is binding unless the law says otherwise. It is basically what they hope they can get away with until someone has the balls to take them to court.
Don't believe EULA's.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
heh..it was a hot coffee mod and her kid in the back seat might have seen it.
Since they're saying the plots of land have a "for sale" sign posted in game with the lot's ID, it would seem to me to be more like you are having a garage sale. You start writing a sign for the monitor, "For Sale $1" when you are called away by the spouse to kill a spider. You intended to finish writing "$100." And the monitor is sitting in the foyer connecting your garage to the house. You left the door open when you went on the spider job.
Someone comes along, sees the sign (not exactly in the garage), leaves a dollar, and grabs the monitor. The sign is there. It is viewable by the public indirectly. This guy just got in on the sale early. Thoughts?
Bad example. Are you really familiar with the details of case or just the strawman version popular among those in favor of tort reform? McDonald's sold the woman a beverage that, by their own admission is "not fit for consumption" when handed it to a customer. They sold their coffee far hotter than just about anyone else. They had been repeatedly warned about their coffee and serious burns had happened before. This wasn't a woman dangerously mixing drinking coffee and driving; she was a passenger in the vehicle in question. The woman originally contacted McDonald's and only asked for McDonald's to cover her medical expenses. Only when McDonald's refuse did she turn to a lawsuit. Even then she asked for a relatively small amount of money (on the order of $200,000; a reasonable amount considering she had many thousands of dollars of medical bills and now a lawyer's bills). The rest of the judgement was punitive damages assigned by the jury when they learned that how negligent McDonald's was. This wasn't someone greedily trying to get free money. This was a 79-year-old woman trying to cope with sudden large medical bills because McDonald's had sold her a dangerously hot beverage.
A good summary of the facts of the case.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
The guy grabbed $3000 worth of lumber, got a cashier drunk, and then convinced him to ring it all up for $30. That's theft, no matter how you slice it.
Oh... So that is why Home Depot smells like whiskey! You'd think they have rules against drinking on the job especially with all the power tools involved.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I think sirwired hit it for the analogy. The normal procedure was bypassed to complete the sale. Though, the counter argument to this would be that the guy in the article did, in a manner of speaking, use the normal procedure (This is where the analogy starts to break down). So the question becomes, is it valid to utilitze an automated system to buy something, before the seller intends for that system to be used? Since there was not a public posting of the sale, I think it would be a safe assumption that there was no intention to sell, at that time, and so that invalidates the claim that the seller had made an affirmative action to sell something. Of course, that is going to hinge on the question of, if they had set the item to auctionable in their database, is that an affirmative action? I have a feeling that this is probably going to be one of those times were the courts are going to have to look at the implications of both answers and try to rule in a way to protect society from the consequences. If we allow this type of action it is going to create a huge burden on sellers to make sure that everything is completly locked down. On the other hand, invalidating sales where the buyer figured out the system and circumvented it does not seem to create a burden.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
I tend to have balanced views on most things, and this is no exception.
Being 'balanced' in saying something banal like "both sides were at fault" doesn't make your assertion correct.
If I create a virtual world and I give you permission use it, and - if you want to - to resell items created in it for real money and make it clear I can take it all away if I feel like it at any time, that's my right and I've done nothing wrong. If you don't like it, take your business elsewhere and should not use the software. That is the stance LL take and it's made very clear.
How US law might view this is completely irrelevant to whether it was actually right or wrong, because ethically it was 100% wrong.
No it's not, LL can do this at any time they feel like it and customers are informed before they signup, in fact they are required to indicate they have specifically read and accepted the terms of service before they use the software. You did read Section 2.6 didn't you?
But Linden Labs have created a world where customers (not LL) own their personal content, and by implication they have independent lives and livelihoods and businesses etc etc. To cut off Bragg from his possessions, his virtual life, his livelihood and businesses was not only inappropriate, it was totally underhand and almost evil. They unilaterally executed this virtual person (I'm serious), without due process in-world nor any opportunity for defense.
Nonsense. This guy made an attempt to contravene the system. The license says "if you attempt to contravene the system, you will be cut off." He's a lawyer. He knew perfectly well what that agreement meant when he signed up to it.
There is no point at which someone who falls into proscribed punishments they've already agreed to because of an attempt to defraud other customers can be considered "evil." They're protecting their other customers, plain and simple. If he got a slap on the wrist, he'd just try other scams, and they have a responsibility to display to their customers that the customers are being protected.
Over and over and over again the Linden Labs license goes into how none of the stuff they sell - not the Linden Dollars, not the land, nothing - has any real value. Period. It's in the license. It doesn't matter what people decide it's worth, what they'll pay one another for it, none of it. That's not a real economy, no matter how much it acts like one, and no matter how much people want to pretend that means it is one. There's a very specific meaning to real value. If there was real value, they'd have to protect it. Because there isn't real value, they can't sell it directly. There was a long and interesting talk on exactly this at E3 this year; if you'd like to actually understand how the industry works, you should join us.
There is no real value here, and he agreed to a license that says "if you try to steal from us or the other customers, you're shut off, period." Exactly where do you think Linden has crossed the line? Do you actually believe that a lawyer shouldn't be expected to be bound by a license they agreed to when being punished for an obvious scam?
StoneCypher is Full of BS